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visit dve Thomas foundation.org SL learn [Music] moreis West Memphis [Music] 3 Damen Eck Jason Baldwin Jesse Miss
00:01:17
Kelly West Memphis [Music] 3 they were just 8 years old Steven Branch Michael Moore and Christopher
00:01:27
buers found murdered hog hi and naked in a drainage dit in West Memphis West Memphis
00:01:40
3 the state stands behind the conviction for my understanding there were two Jason bals I've always wondered
00:01:51
When Miss Kelly's giving this coerced confession do do you think that that he was speaking speaking of the Jason
00:02:00
Baldwin that that that they arrested or you think he was just speaking to the whatever persons they were going to try
00:02:08
to no we he he knew exactly what he he was saying and the reason he said it was because that's what the cops wanted him
00:02:15
to say and Jason and Damian were inseparable they were like a joined twins literally I mean they did
00:02:23
everything together and but they weren't very much alike but it doesn't forgive those attorneys for not putting on an
00:02:30
alibi defense had an alibi are you able to take us through that a little bit the
00:02:35
AL yeah because I that was the one day I was at trial uh when the jury after the
00:02:41
jury went in the uh Jury Room I I wanted to see what was going to happen obviously because I was thinking there's
00:02:47
no way surely to God they're going to convict these guys because there's no evidence and um so uh I was stunned when
00:02:55
they came back you know and the judge read the verdict and asked Damian if he had anything to say and my recollection
00:03:04
was he said No in fact I think he just shook his head no and the judge made him say it out loud I remember very clearly
00:03:10
Jason saying yeah I'm innocent right that was the only two or three words that he got to say during
00:03:18
the entire trial and he begged his lawyers to let him testify and they wouldn't do it they didn't put on any
00:03:23
defense it's like they were scared to have their own trial the jury would have seen like you were talking about between
00:03:30
the the the contrast between Baldwin and Eckles that that would have been apparent and obvious to the jury that
00:03:38
these are two very different personalities had had baldman taken the stand for people who it's sort of like
00:03:45
having a losing a child it's it's something if you've never experienced it um it's hard to understand but let me
00:03:54
try to make it understandable and it's probably it's it was one of my goals in the book to do
00:04:02
that and I may have failed miserably but uh I wanted to explain to them just how
00:04:08
bad the satanic Panic was and in this day and age of fake news and the Deep State theories and all these crazy
00:04:16
Notions on on the internet uh um back then it was devil worshiping and this was a Satanic ritual and U that was
00:04:28
their Theory and and uh they stuck with it until they uh found their scapegoats and Damian was the prime suspect because
00:04:38
he was the standout he if it was 101 degrees and 100% humidity outside he wore a black trench coat black pants and
00:04:47
uh combat boots and a black t-shirt underneath the way that that persons try to tell this story on the Internet or on
00:04:54
different podcasts that that claim to have a great understanding of the cas is they they make it sound like Jesse just
00:05:01
willy-nilly all sudden decided oh I'm just gonna I'm just talking and telling and having a good time and telling a
00:05:06
telling the story how it happened and no a lot of that was people pulling this out of him and setting him up to fail
00:05:15
miserably our psychologist called it cheating to lose Jesse will agree with anything you say just because he's
00:05:24
trying to hide his uh intellectual disability um I started out as I stated in the book I got first person I call
00:05:33
was Park DEET because of the dmer case uh he was the The Shining Star in criminal psychology at the time and I
00:05:43
knew if he read this confession that that um he would be able to punch holes in it but he wouldn't even talk to me
00:05:50
till I wrote him a check for $155,000 right and I didn't have 1500 uh to do that or 150 probably at that time
00:05:59
so we ended up with um not the best but the worst if I had been smart enough to read John grisham's book A Time to Kill
00:06:09
I would have thought to ask my psychologist if he had a damn license or not and he didn't so it was like a
00:06:19
nuclear bomb going off in the courtroom the guy lied to us when we confronted him about it brunette wouldn't give us a
00:06:25
continuance to find somebody else to evaluate him naturally the kids never had the best of anything in his life
00:06:31
except for Richard offet and Warren Holmes and some may say myself but but um uh I started at the top everywhere I
00:06:41
went and I'm I got the best person on the planet for false confessions and I got the best person on the planet for
00:06:49
polygraph which Miss Kelly passed but brette wouldn't let in even though there was case law from the Supreme Court
00:06:56
including an Arkansas case that said any evidence tending to show the innocence of the client is admissible but he
00:07:05
wouldn't let it in naturally well and you were outside of being an attorney you were you were teaching law for a
00:07:13
period right um yes um I I taught criminal justice and the Constitution and a Sociology class uh to and and I
00:07:25
think that's how you know you had to once you take your anger out I think think that that's how you have to kind
00:07:31
of deliver the story of like a teacher would standing in front of the class it's this is this is the way it was yeah
00:07:40
what happened thought of that uh that's a good point um very astute uh and and you know the day the Alfred plea even
00:07:49
though I didn't understand it I felt like the world have been lifted off my shoulders um and then Pam Hobs and and
00:07:58
um uh Mark buers Mark buers I'm sorry U it's been a long week and a long day but
00:08:05
um they both came up to me in the courtroom and made me promise that I'd find the real killer so I went from
00:08:12
being done with this nightmare to the nightmare starting over again but what could I say so here I am all these years
00:08:21
later looking for a killer I've actually got a suspect well and let's let's go down let's table that for a second but
00:08:28
because we brought Mark buers he in my opinion I you know I hate that I mean the whole let's let's let's try to
00:08:41
I'll try to make light of the situation as best one can given the the severity of everything obviously but Mark buers
00:08:49
to me is somebody that could have had his own reality TV show you know you could just put cameras and follow this
00:08:58
guy around and he he's you can't take your eyes off of him for whatever reason he's a kind of stole the show if you
00:09:06
would during the paradise loss stuff but you met him several times what was your first encounter with Mark buers
00:09:17
like well it was still in the day when I was convinced absolutely convinced that
00:09:23
he was the one who killed the kids and um I was doing a live feed uh from New York on court TV about uh Daman Eckles
00:09:35
rule 37 hearing I completed my segment and buyers was next and so this was the first time I'd been within you know 50
00:09:45
ft of him uh Striking Distance yeah exactly or shooting distance yeah yeah might be a better way to put it um he
00:09:55
came up to me and um took my hand and uh I thought he'd broke my hand I really did um and I took that as a warning to
00:10:04
back off to say he's a big boy would be an understatement I'm a very large human
00:10:10
[Music] being uh but I'm a dwarf compared to him and it felt like his hand wrapped around
00:10:17
mine twice when he squeezed it and uh I literally thought he had broken my hand and I took that as a warning to back off
00:10:25
and of course I didn't back off and wouldn't because I had a duty to my client he and I actually you know by the
00:10:34
time we met again we were on the same team um and um I think he realized that you know that was pretty stupid of me to
00:10:42
act like the the clown on Paradise Lost too because it drw a lot of attention towards me I think they I think they
00:10:49
kind of wound him up a little bit though I'm sure they did and the second film was no there's no question about it
00:10:56
there was an advocacy film for the West Memphis 3 by then and which almost didn't happen HBO was threatened to be
00:11:03
sued by the Hobs family for for uh making another film and uh they they almost canned it to make the third one
00:11:13
no the second one the second one what why would why would the Hobs family go after them to cancel the second because
00:11:21
this makes them relive it every time uh something else comes out and and I'll go
00:11:27
ahead on the record and apologize for that happening again um and I don't completely understand their pain because
00:11:36
they had 8-year-old who passed away my kid was 34 but I do understand better than I did then and um it's it's
00:11:45
horrible and and I but I remember because I found it in my file when I was writing the book I didn't put it in the
00:11:52
book but uh I actually remember writing a letter to the executive producer at HBO uh Sheila nans
00:12:00
begging her to let this come out let the truth come out and let let the film come
00:12:05
out and of course uh as it turns out I ultimately determined buyers couldn't have done it because I could account for
00:12:13
every second of where he was uh at the time of the murders when when I saw that in your book I jumped off of my couch in
00:12:22
celebration because he was an easy he didn't do himself any favors like he looked guilty camera and but but one
00:12:32
thing we did when we covered this case on True Crime garage back in 2016 and we did everything we could in
00:12:40
two weeks time to pull together all the information on the confirmed timelines of the night that they went missing up
00:12:50
until past the the time that the boys were found and and we pulled all several sources to confirm everything and one
00:12:59
thing that we said at the end of those three hours of our coverage of the case we said we can't tell you who did it we
00:13:06
can tell you who didn't do it and one of those persons is Mark buers because we could not find a we could not find more
00:13:14
than a three or three to five minute Gap anywhere that timeline that he was that
00:13:19
he was alone and and so as guilty as he looked on camera in Paradise Lost 2 he just
00:13:27
simply couldn't have done it and and and and to hear somebody of your level and expertise to say the same thing I felt I
00:13:34
felt pretty proud of myself in that moment well you nailed it you definitely did uh for sure and one of the best
00:13:41
parts of Paradise Lost 3 um Purgatory I believe was the name um y was the David Letterman's top 10 reasons
00:13:53
why I didn't do it and Terry Hobs did uh why do you think that that this is something I've always struggled with why
00:14:02
the hell didn't West Memphis PD pull in a bigger outfit to take on this case in your opinion this I I get
00:14:12
this will strictly be opinion but well mar mar lever has pointed that out and I don't know if it was in Devil's not I
00:14:19
think it was there was might have been her subsequent book potential Shady activity
00:14:25
going on yes there was um not potential it was actual uh the FBI set up a sting uh the
00:14:35
Greyhound uh Park uh in West Memphis and someone faked a 911 call and said there's a drug deal going down in the
00:14:44
parking lot and the drug task force that Brent Davis had exonerated earlier one of the prosecutors uh the chief
00:14:54
prosecutor and um he had said he looked into it and everything was fine and dandy uh but the feds came in
00:15:04
and set up this thing and all these guys show up and what what do you know some of the
00:15:12
money doesn't get reported to the evidence uh locker and some of it was found in uh a shoe box under an
00:15:20
officer's bed that the bills were marked and uh so at the time of the murders the
00:15:28
Arkansas State Police police who who are much better equipped to handle major crimes because that's what they
00:15:35
do um The West Memphis Police wouldn't let them in because they were pissed off they were being investigated and there
00:15:42
were convictions now I will say this out of fairness the the officer who had the
00:15:49
money under his bed must have had the best lawyer and he is a good lawyer because I know who it is it Bill Bristo
00:15:56
uh from Jonesboro he got acquitted of that even though the money was under his P
00:16:03
so how about hats off the bill uh is everybody knows he's a great lawyer but uh I I don't know how he pulled that one
00:16:11
off and meanwhile we say you know then calling a bigger better outfit with more resources
00:16:18
which they should have done I mean th this type of crime is extremely rare I mean I that's all I do for the last
00:16:27
eight years is cover Crime Story stories and I cannot think offhand of another situation where there's well other than
00:16:38
the yogurt shop case down in Texas Yeah Austin that's anything similar and so it's extremely rare but but meanwhile
00:16:48
they do contact the FBI John Douglas Ken Lanning and the two of the experts I mean if there was a mountain of experts
00:16:56
these guys are at the top of it and these guys are saying Satanic ritual killing no doesn't doesn't really exist
00:17:06
doesn't truly happen and yet they pursued this Avenue instead well they had to CU they were stuck was mis kill's
00:17:15
confession they couldn't come in and say oh we made a mistake we're still going to try them anyway and that's
00:17:21
fascinating because um that that's that is in my book and and um sitting here at
00:17:28
my desk probably writing the book um a couple years ago and I get this text message
00:17:34
from a friend of mine uh um actually it was my Prosecutor's wife Kimberly warmouth and she said I can't even
00:17:43
listen to an honorable audible book without your name being mentioned and I said what are you talking about and she
00:17:49
text back and said John Douglas uh talks about you in his book and I said what are you talking about and I didn't know
00:17:59
the cases that haunt us I believe is the one uh it's sitting right here in my bookshelf let's see law and disorder law
00:18:06
that's correct law and disorder and I think you're probably mentioned in the cases that haunt us as well well I need
00:18:12
to look that up I because I didn't know about that one either you know John Douglas worked on the case with us uh he
00:18:20
was brought in primarily by Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh um who spent Millions probably their own money to to
00:18:31
uh basically give the West Memphis free the trial they never had that was the purpose of their
00:18:36
documentary the story goes according to uh because I ordered the book immediately and it took about three or
00:18:42
four days to get here and and I opened it up I didn't read the whole book I just read the part about the West
00:18:49
Memphis 3 and and he talks about uh going returning from Arkansas and I think he mentioned since about how hot
00:18:56
it was there uh which was true and he ran into Ken Lanning and he said hey Ken uh I was told that the prosecutors in
00:19:07
the west Memphis case actually called for help and uh do you remember anything like that and Ken Lanning who had
00:19:15
debunked the the theory of Satanic ritual homicide told him that if you try the case that way you'll be laughed out
00:19:24
of the courtroom and of course they didn't get laughed out of the courtroom because we're in the middle the Bible
00:19:29
Belt and everybody takes the Bible literally and believes in Satan I'm not I'm not mocking anybody's religion but
00:19:37
I'm just saying people in the Bible Belt react differently than other people other other places so um which added to
00:19:45
the satanic panic but but uh and he said Ken said the next thing I knew I'm reading in the paper they were all
00:19:52
convicted Douglas thought that was hilarious that the the prosecutors uh had called and and um and
00:19:59
Ken Ken said he said well did they ever call you back he said no they didn't call me back and uh they did the same
00:20:08
thing in the John Benet Ramsey case uh they the FBI told them what they thought and they didn't like the FBI's uh the
00:20:16
prosecution didn't like what the FBI was saying exactly just the same thing as in
00:20:20
the west Memphis case so and to put it in perspective a little bit and this may not re this a lot of persons listening
00:20:28
today especially the younger audience may not know what this means but you know I was looking up a lot of the local
00:20:35
newspaper articles going on at the time in early May and early June of 1993 in your area and I couldn't help but notice
00:20:45
coming across a June 3D 1993 big advertisement for Billy Graham TV special titled the value of a soul
00:20:56
was going to be on that night at 7 p.m on W channel 3 and and that's what three four days before Jesse M Killy gives the
00:21:08
the so-called confession to the police and you know you have Billy Graham TV evangelist on on the local network there
00:21:17
delivering the special the value of a soul so it yes I mean it's it we had a little bit of that uh in the early 990s
00:21:25
here in Ohio again I was very young so I don't have great understanding of it but
00:21:30
uh I could only imagine how much stronger that was in the South it was palpable and it's like I told Eddie
00:21:40
veter at our meeting our first meeting um you know somebody like Daman Eckles if you go to New York or La there's aund
00:21:49
of them on the sidewalk walking down the street Gothic and you know the dark makeup and all that jazz and and uh but
00:21:59
that doesn't happen in Northeast Arkansas not even in Memphis um so uh he he stuck out like a swore of thumb
00:22:09
and he was the perfect py well and he and he was young and dumb enough that he liked kind of sticking out oh he he
00:22:16
toyed with the cops like he played with him and said asked him what what do you think the killer would be thinking at
00:22:23
the time that he was doing this and the answer was real spooky and and it's just
00:22:29
you know the kid did not do himself any favors and he understands that now and and I haven't seen him since Bruce sow's
00:22:38
Memorial um at the Lincoln Center uh back in 2015 I believe um gosh it didn't seem like it was that long ago but it
00:22:47
was he's changed a tremendous amount um and of course you know how could you not
00:22:53
be affected by 18 years and 78 days in a 10x1 concrete tomb uh with nothing to do one hour of
00:23:03
being outside with nothing to do uh I don't know how he survived it but um he he U he said something about
00:23:13
uh I was wearing a tie and he said he said hey Dan are we supposed to get dressed up for this and and and I said I
00:23:21
said I I don't know this is just the way I dress when I go places and because I didn't want to embarrass him um
00:23:28
and um but I could tell it it freaked him out so I mean it just um and who wouldn't be I really genuinely feel
00:23:37
sorry for him and uh I hope some of these people are right and and maybe maybe my book did have some impact on
00:23:45
Arkansas Supreme Court's decision to send it back to the trial court for rethink the concept of uh testing the
00:23:54
the evidence with new DNA technology and of course what's good for Damian Eckles
00:23:59
is good for Jesse Miss Kelly and Jason Baldwin so we've got a partial DNA in fact um there's just not enough markers
00:24:09
to put it in codus we can exclude people but not include them so maybe this will
00:24:14
get us to where we need to be and here we here we still have the state of Arkansas fighting us tooth and nail I
00:24:21
say us because I considered all all of us in this together even though you know I'm a judge I don't practice law anymore
00:24:28
but here they are their first story was uh the evidence was lost in a flood and then the second story was it
00:24:37
burned up in a fire and then suddenly it magically reappeared um and the evidence room of
00:24:43
all places um and so I mean they just they will not accept the fact that these kids didn't do it because it's going to
00:24:53
make them look like what they are and that is people who put the wrong people in prison and don't want to admit
00:25:01
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said the flood and I don't know if this is the situation there but I've run into
00:29:41
this situation many times talking to detectives on cases that we cover especially old cases cold
00:29:48
cases why does the evidence room always seem to be in the basement of the building right the the the the location
00:29:55
that would be most affected should there be a flow blood well they said that they
00:30:00
moved it to a different location to store it which really they didn't have any obligation to keep it at all because
00:30:07
the case is legal conclusion so um so they said it was off site and then then they suddenly found it uh in in the
00:30:18
evidence room and they moved the police station after the trials in '94 sometime
00:30:25
after that uh to an old Bank building that had gone out of business and so the evidence room was actually the bank
00:30:33
vault so uh it was well protected in there but they denied they had it because they didn't want to deal with it
00:30:41
I'm still speaking without having had the benefit of reading the full opinion but um it looks like they're going to
00:30:48
get to test the evidence to me and that could have huge ramifications for the case to give those people out there who
00:30:55
are on the fence or who are or who are completely convinced that they're guilty let me ask them a question and that
00:31:03
question is do you think that three kids accused of murdering three eight-year-old kids would not roll over
00:31:14
on each other right that doesn't happen in real life right and and in confession
00:31:19
air quotes confession aside that's the thing that I try to point out because there's people that that do say well
00:31:25
Jesse Melly can confessed five six seven however many times he but as far as I'm
00:31:31
and yes that does that does muddy the waters a little bit but he could as far as the as far as courts go
00:31:40
he could he could have confessed a thousand different times but he never was willing to do it in court when he
00:31:47
was offered deals and the reason for that was is people who have Mr U have this and it's a sort of unique
00:31:59
trait for people that have Mr they believe they cannot tell a lie in a courtroom they can lie on a Bible
00:32:08
sitting at the assistant warden's office at prison in front of me um U I've seen
00:32:14
people ly on the Bible before he wasn't there he never was there because when I showed him the the police map of where I
00:32:24
had him I told him I needed a Bible and I needed a crime scene map and to Wi out
00:32:29
where the bodies were located and I finally got that and I asked Miss Kelly to point to where the bodies were
00:32:36
located and he pointed to the large pipe that goes across the 10mile Bayou because that came up so many times
00:32:42
during the trial he was just guessing again all he was doing and so um but when it got down to to are you going to
00:32:51
testify or not he said I I can't lie on those boys no more cuz uh he he couldn't
00:32:56
lie in court because mentally handicap people think that that's a mortal sin it's like a little child right the child
00:33:04
the child wants to please the person they're interacting with and it's almost like he wants to provide an answer
00:33:13
that's the answer that you are seeking rather than the true answer exactly and and uh Tim dering who was our
00:33:20
postconviction forensic psychologist he's the one who interviewed Miss Kelly and and provided
00:33:27
his findings which changed my whole impression of what Jesse Miss Kelly was capable of intellectually I mean it
00:33:35
shocked me because I had no experience whatsoever in dealing with people who had Mr or who were intellectually
00:33:42
challenged I I you know I couldn't understand and it actually frustrated me that I couldn't understand why can't
00:33:49
this kid get the story right and according to um Dr dering people with Mr believe they can't tell lie in the
00:33:58
courtroom but they can lie anywhere else they want to but they can't do it in the
00:34:02
courtroom and in reading that in the transcript I uh I called Jason Baldwin one night he didn't answer but he called
00:34:10
me the next day and he said I said I heard they offered you five years to testify against Damian and he said yep
00:34:17
they did a a prison sentence of five years yes they offered me five years to testify against Damian but I told him
00:34:26
just just so everybody out there listening completely understands he's facing what life in prison or the death
00:34:33
penalty or the death penalty and instead he's offered five years to turn on his friend for something that the state or
00:34:42
at least the prosecutors are convinced that he is guilty of and we know he doesn't five years he doesn't take the
00:34:51
5year deal I told Jason after he confirmed that I said you do understand that would have basically been time
00:34:59
served he goes yeah that's what they told me and I didn't take it and he was willing to spend another five years
00:35:09
waiting to get a new trial if necessary so that he could be exonerated but instead he sacrificed himself just like
00:35:16
I did when I fell on my sword at the rule 37 and told the truth the other lawyers said oh no we did this because
00:35:23
it was strategy and we did a good job and uh but I was the only one that told the truth let me ask you this while
00:35:30
we're talking about doing the wrong thing and you can give me a short answer long answer or you can say Nick I'm a
00:35:36
judge I don't feel comfortable answering that question okay this sounds like it's
00:35:41
going to be exciting do you think or have evidence of that somebody at the West Memphis Police Department sold
00:35:51
Jesse Miss Kelly's so-called confession to the commercial appeal the newspaper no I could never find it uh I firmly
00:36:00
believe that it happened I looked for it I did how I mean how else could they got
00:36:07
there's no way that they I so I did a word count on the newspaper article of of Miss Kelly's confession on the June
00:36:16
June 7th 1993 Commercial Appeal it's the headline on the front page it's 1627 words about it's practically his
00:36:26
whole damn conf ession printed in the news it taints the jury pole any possibility jury absolutely so you're
00:36:34
confident saying you we we think I think somebody sold it right there's probably
00:36:39
some money that exchanged the only motive for doing that other than money was to get that information out there to
00:36:47
taint the jury pool oh that's true and the only people who would have had that motive would be G somebody who just
00:36:54
walked by and saw setting on the transcripts that on a table uh maybe a secretary or somebody at the police
00:37:02
department or even a victim's parent which I don't believe I think it was a cop but I can't prove that I wish I
00:37:10
could the closest I ever came was uh I was involved in a panel discussion with Mara Levert and the former editor of the
00:37:20
Midsouth uh Commercial Appeal uh and um which is now def F they're out completely out of business newspapers
00:37:30
are a thing of the past pretty much I asked him directly I said did you purchase that from a police officer or
00:37:38
anybody else and he looked at me and his body language is the answer he did buy it
00:37:47
from uh somebody a cop but he wouldn't answer the question but um uh of course he didn't have to answer the question
00:37:55
but just asking it and seeing his response was enough for me to know that he bought it from somebody otherwise it
00:38:01
wouldn't have been copyrighted it's very rare for a true Crim store to be copyrighted Yeah by a newspaper in fact
00:38:09
I've never seen one to be honest with you they're like unicorns we already talked about Mark buers but obviously
00:38:16
you've met all six I'm guessing all six of the parents of the victims I've never met or
00:38:23
spoken to Mr Moore or his wife um they seem to be the two that are most kind of removed from everything right
00:38:34
yeah and you got to remember and of course um you're in Ohio I'm in Arkansas but you know the OJ trial I I use as an
00:38:45
example here is a case that they changed the venue to a larger courtroom to accommodate the press and the live
00:38:55
coverage of the trial by doing so they increased the number of uh African-Americans uh in the jury pool
00:39:04
mhm the riots were I think the year before 92 and and um I guess that was Rodney
00:39:14
King and all that stuff Y and so you had a jurry pool in in La who were very distrustful of the
00:39:25
police and in Arkansas saw people will buy a cop their lunch or uh restaurants will give them free coffee or food uh
00:39:35
and everybody believes that the cops are your best friend and for the most part they are but there are some who aren't
00:39:44
so we you know to to compare those juries um we had a jury that was distrustful of the police then we had
00:39:51
Mark Ferman who uh said he didn't use never use the nword but they had him on tape saying it repeatedly m in our case
00:40:00
we had a jury pool who believed everything the police would tell them the sky was green and had yellow polka
00:40:07
dots right so it's two different situations and I think I pointed it out in the book that I think both juries got
00:40:15
it wrong for the wrong reason yep it's it's just um and of course in any case whether it's high-profile or not a jury
00:40:24
is only as good as the evidence in front of it and berett would not let us put on our
00:40:29
case because he knew what would happen uh we almost won the case we had five votes for AC quiddle in the first round
00:40:38
of voting in the Jury Room wh- which is amazing considering the circumstances yeah exactly had Dr as been permitted to
00:40:46
testify you and I might be having the same conver conversation but it would have been 30 years ago
00:40:54
now and I and I would be a killionaire with the yeah oh yeah of course but with the parents of the
00:41:05
victims from my general understanding it sounds like of the six that likely maybe three of them were
00:41:15
swayed the other way of thinking that the West Memphis Three were innocent eventually mark buers his wife is hard
00:41:23
to say because unfortunately she passed away years ago Pam Hobs of course uh has
00:41:29
been very vocal at times saying that she believes that the the West Memphis 3 are
00:41:35
Innocent but the Moors seem to from my understanding still believe that they're guilty and of course Terry Hobbs as well
00:41:42
maybe Dana mo may have wavered on that a little bit at times I I don't know she did um but I never spoke to her I did
00:41:52
speak to Terry Hobbs one time I've I've actually spoken to Terry Hobbs uh couple
00:41:57
he he said that he would do an interview with me if I sent him the questions in advance and I sent what I did was I sent
00:42:04
him the same questions that the FBI said to ask every every person that you interview to the West Memphis 3 because
00:42:13
because I thought well I'm sorry to be laughing but that's that's hilarious is that well I thought it was a good idea
00:42:19
because no I think it's brilliant like I'm not trying to put any of the parents through anything but it's like well
00:42:25
these were the questions we were asking people that we knock on the doors of but
00:42:28
we I've been doing this long enough to know that the younger the victim the smaller their Social Circle the Le you
00:42:34
know the the less suspects you have and so I and he told me I'll answer any question you give me so I sent him the I
00:42:43
sent them the same ones that the FBI told the West Memphis PD to ask everybody they encounter the same
00:42:50
questions that Jesse Melly would have answered and Damen Eckles would have answered and well I I was going to say
00:42:56
between me and but there's going to be 100,000 people that hear this all of a sudden a family emergency came up and he
00:43:03
we never did the interview he couldn't make it yeah yeah but anyway you you said you you talked to Terry I did I had
00:43:10
I had a strange encounter with him during the second trial I I didn't go in the courtroom because there was a live
00:43:17
feed in the hallway and so I was just kind of watching uh just because I was curious obviously and I stepped out of
00:43:25
the courtroom to go back to parag where I live um and and um he approached me and at first I thought uhoh I'm going to
00:43:34
fixing to get cussed out here uh right he's not a very big fellow I wouldn't worry about my safety but um he came up
00:43:41
to me and quite graciously said hey I think you did a good job for Miss Kelly and I know you're just doing your job
00:43:49
and uh was actually very kind and I and I was stunned by that not stunned surprised I was stunned when his DNA
00:44:00
link showed up on the shoe strings of Michael Moore that that that was that was a shock well let me interrupt you
00:44:08
here for a second because I was trying to find this the other day and and you you probably won't know it off the top
00:44:14
of your head but I was I remember six seven years ago when I was looking at this case that the the boys
00:44:23
of course they're tied up with the shoelaces but they're not necessarily up with their own shoelaces right like some
00:44:29
of them were tied up with with another boy's shoelaces I only go down that road because I think obviously like it
00:44:38
wouldn't be out of bounds to find something of Terry hobb's DNA at that scene especially when Stevie
00:44:47
Branch who lives with him 247 in the same house but then it's a different victim
00:44:54
Michael Moore but I I don't call offand whose shoelaces tied up Michael Moore I do
00:45:03
recall it was Michael Moore's okay percentagewise less likely that you would find Terry hobbs' DNA on Michael
00:45:10
Moore shoelaces let me answer the question this way and um there's more evidence against Terry Hobbs than any of
00:45:20
the West Memphis 3 yes and uh but do I think Terry Hobbs did it no without some proof I don't I think we're dealing with
00:45:29
a serial killer I get why a lot of people have kind of turned on Terry Hops and and I know you said you were kind of
00:45:37
surprised and yes you're surprised because I don't think you're saying you're you were surprised by his
00:45:42
demeanor toward you because he's under suspicion I think you're saying that because you were surprised by his
00:45:50
demeanor because he you're helping trying to exonerate the persons that were accused of of the cribes yeah I
00:45:58
mean that that's that that whole that whole encounter has really kind of haunted me all these years um he he was
00:46:05
very nice when he spoke with me and not that that means anything but well he he does have a History of Violence he shot
00:46:11
Pam's sister or her brother I think right or her her sister her brother yes uh his
00:46:19
brother-in-law and and he got out of it of it by essentially saying well I'm a victim of the West Memphis 3ks and but
00:46:28
those two had a volatile relationship don't you think they did they did and and um there's no doubt about that but
00:46:36
you know I'm I'm I'm not going to point the finger at Terry Hobs at this stage in the procedings
00:46:43
because I don't think there's enough there not yet there may be after we get some more DNA testing done well let's go
00:46:51
down the serial killer route all right you want to expand on that do you feel comfortable expanding on that a little I
00:46:57
mean there were other child murders in the area and obvious and what what is so bizarre is some of them took place in
00:47:05
May and I'm not a big believer that these that it's like on TV or the movies where these killers operate on a
00:47:12
calendar so to speak or or fascinated by numbers or anything like that but do you
00:47:18
think that it that this really involves the the Blue Beacon and the traffic through the air
00:47:27
or do you think it's somebody very local if you look at the crime scene overhead
00:47:32
map um or this the sketches that were made by the police um that truck stop was immediately adjacent to the place
00:47:43
where they found the bodies in the wooded area you could literally throw a baseball so if you parked up against the
00:47:51
back and in the photograph that HBO took um it shows the the trucks backed up as
00:47:58
far away from as they could get from anybody else in the parking lot which is someone like 10 acres or or maybe more
00:48:06
and uh which means they didn't want to be bothered for whatever reason I don't remember whether I addressed this in the
00:48:12
book or not I've slept a couple times since then not many but a few those shoelaces were tied in such a
00:48:20
way that I don't think they were designed to keep them from running or getting away I think they were designed
00:48:28
as carrying handles because you had left foot to left ankle right or what am I saying left wrist left to left right to
00:48:36
right you think you think they were killed elsewhere I do I do there's uh there no blood at found there would had
00:48:44
been a tremendous amount of blood different location or in the back of empty 18wheeler or in the cab of an
00:48:51
18wheeler the best job to have if you're a serial killer is a truck driver so that you can be six states away by the
00:48:58
time they find the bodies and there's no connection and the FBI has told us that
00:49:02
for for years since the 90s in fact and and so you think it was somebody you lean toward the idea that it would have
00:49:10
been somebody that was not local that that would have had the ability to move on very quickly yes I do and and do you
00:49:19
have anybody in in particular I do but I don't want to share that because I don't
00:49:25
want uh to comped my investigation but but it would be a name that persons that that would be it it would be a name that
00:49:34
what is not in the Paradise Lost movies or not in West Memphis 3 books I've never spoken anyone about it without an
00:49:44
NDA agreement right um and and um but I I can place a over the road truck driver
00:49:54
in the area the immediate area who confessed to killing someone and told the police exactly where the body would
00:50:03
be found and it was found exactly where he said it was in 1992 do you does it have anything to do
00:50:11
with the Bojangles no I don't think so at all do you think that's one of the biggest missteps in this whole I think
00:50:18
it was and and I'm not saying this because I for the truth of the matter asserted I'm saying it because I believe
00:50:27
that is why that blood never made it to Little Rock to the crime lab because uh they didn't want it to uh match anything
00:50:36
because they already had their three guys wrapped up that's just my belief but um I find it strangely coincidental
00:50:45
and I really don't believe in coincidences you on the night that the kids come up missing
00:50:51
and the patrol is out uh looking for these three kids and uh they get a call from a fast food
00:50:59
place saying hey this guy just stumbled into our lady's restroom and bled everywhere in there and saturated a roll
00:51:08
of toilet paper with blood Left Behind Some bloody sunglasses which would have had fingerprints on them and the cop
00:51:15
pulls through the dter and says n throw it away we don't care and so by the time
00:51:20
they found the bodies the next day they suddenly cared enough to come and take the blood sample but Brian rids
00:51:25
testified that lost it and never got sent to the crime lab because by then they had their guys and they had their
00:51:31
story and they had to stick to it even though the FBI told them they were full of however you want to phrase it again
00:51:39
I'll if if you give me the answer Nick I'm a judge and I don't feel comfortable answering this question I I I'll be fine
00:51:47
with that but what do you think and I know this is pure speculation complete absolute speculation and it's probably
00:51:55
not fair that I'm asking this but you're you're you I I've met Jason Baldwin very
00:52:01
briefly so you you are the person that is the closest to this case that I've had this level of interaction with what
00:52:10
would be your speculation as to what maybe Regina officer Regina Meeks might have
00:52:18
seen had she brushed off the mosquitoes and walked into the woods that night well I mean it's obviously speculation
00:52:29
um she wouldn't get out of the car to walk into the uh fast food restaurant and uh she could have at least at the
00:52:36
very least bagged up the toilet paper roll saturated with blood and and the sunglasses um but she told the manager
00:52:45
to throw them away and they were gone by the time that they they got there the next day and suddenly were interested
00:52:52
somehow again for reasons unknown that I can't prove other than what the testimony of the
00:52:58
officer was he says I just lost it how do you lose that I mean that that could be the most important evidence in
00:53:06
the case and how do you just lose something like that and and and the reason she wouldn't get out of her car
00:53:12
to walk into the woods is because if you've ever been to Arkansas in May um the mosquitoes are uh horrible they're
00:53:22
hungry and very hungry and um and several the officers stated that they quit searching because of the mosquitoes
00:53:32
but potentially could have seen well they could have seen bodies floating you know whoever dumped those bodies there
00:53:40
and you know one person could have with with those liers uh carried a kid that weighed 50
00:53:46
lbs in each hand and Carri two of them at once and dump them in of course they make this big deal about the clothes
00:53:54
being stuck in the mud after all the things they've said that weren't true how do you believe them on
00:54:01
that of course they did everything wrong at the crime scene they they didn't drain the water first they they felt
00:54:09
around and after they removed the bodies but they should have drained it before they lifted the bodies out but but but
00:54:17
instead they trampled it before they did the right thing so I mean it was out of
00:54:20
their league and just like this case was out of my league in 1993 and uh but I'd love to have the chance
00:54:29
to try it again but the offered plea has deprived me of that so do you think that
00:54:35
that that it's one killer or multiple Killers well if you if you believe the handle Theory I mean I've never tested
00:54:42
it but I mean it seems logical you know cuz if you're if you're a truck driver the last thing you want
00:54:50
to do is dump the body somewhere other than nearby because you don't want be pulled over three dead
00:54:58
8-year-olds in the back of your truck um so that's why that uh it was a dumpsite
00:55:05
um and also you'd want to be getting the heck out of there before they were found
00:55:10
so you could get to the next Blue bacon truck war and clean out your truck yeah and disappear into you only need them to
00:55:18
be concealed long enough for you to get at a do exactly exactly you know Terry hobbs' Alibi is weird and yep suspicious
00:55:27
to say the least but again until we have some evidence that a prosecutor would actually use to prosecute um it's not
00:55:38
going to happen and and the sad truth of the matter is even if they did prosecute
00:55:44
him it doesn't mean that it's an automatic exoneration or pardon from Memphis 3 they're already out of prison
00:55:53
so even if they found the right guy and and corroborated the confession or corroborated through DNA or whatever uh
00:56:01
and nobody has the ambition to do that every the authorities here in Arkansas think this is a closed deal and that's
00:56:10
why I wrote the book so that I could reopen the case uh to some extent and uh get people's minds thinking I had two
00:56:20
retired FBI profilers visit with me at the crime scene uh and they both agreed that this was a serial killer lust crime
00:56:30
because of the being adjacent to the U crime scene the the truck warh and the truck stop and I know John Douglas's
00:56:39
theory is different I think he's a firm believer that somebody these kids knew were responsible and and he's he's a
00:56:48
much better profiler than I am I uh I when I got called to quano I turned turned it down uh sometimes I
00:56:57
wish I hadn't uh cuz my life would have been dramatically different now I'll give you one last question and I'll let
00:57:04
you go judge and and I so appreciate your time tonight and thank you for all of your insights into this case I know
00:57:11
that the audience is going to enjoy it and even more reason for them to go out and pick up the book but a a question
00:57:18
that that constantly comes up in this case is there's several eyewitness in the neighborhood with the young boys
00:57:29
that say that you know at times when they were kind of running through the neighborhood and having a good old time
00:57:38
Christopher Stevie and Michael that they were spotted with a fourth boy I anything that you've reviewed in this
00:57:48
case or your investigation was that fourth child ever identified I believe the closest that we anybody's ever come
00:57:57
to uh finding out who that was was Aaron Hutchinson that it might have been Aaron
00:58:03
Hutchinson and then he he had departed from the group before probably that 6:30 timeline well I don't think so that day
00:58:14
I think that mother Victoria had moved into a different school district and so I think
00:58:23
that they hadn't been friends in a while but used to be close friends but it had
00:58:29
been quite some time since they had hung out and and uh not they weren't in the same school district anymore and so that
00:58:38
that fourth child that that may have been hanging out briefly with the boys that evening as far as we know has not
00:58:47
been fully identified or could be a Mis you know misremembering by well I'll be honest
00:58:54
with you and this is a 32y old memory um I don't recall there ever been a mention
00:59:01
of a fourth boy other than Aaron hutchesson making the claim that uh he witnessed the murders from their Fort
00:59:09
that they had built in the patch of woods but there was no Fort um even the prosecutors were skeptical enough not to
00:59:16
call him to the stand in fact they they hid him out so nobody else could exactly
00:59:21
exactly because the things he was saying was so Fantastical they didn't make it any sense at all I mean at all so judge
00:59:28
SDM I appreciate your time this evening it's been a fascinating conversation the
00:59:33
book is the best book about this case since uh Mar leverett's book in 2002 it's a must it's a must own it's a must
00:59:43
read for everybody out there that has been intrigued about this case all of these years later and I appreciate your
00:59:51
cander and your optimism that maybe that we could find who was in fact responsible one day well if I may end on
01:00:01
with two quotes one being Churchill is and became my Mantra throughout this entire process was never ever ever give
01:00:09
up perseverance does pay off in the end no there's no question about that John Douglas told me to find the artist look
01:00:19
at the artwork West Memphis 3est [Music] 3 Damen Eckles Jason Baldwin Jesse Miss
01:00:35
Kelly West Memphis [Music] 3 they were just 8 years old Steven Branch Michael Moore and Christopher
01:00:45
buers found murdered hog tied and naked in a drainage ditch in West Memphis West
01:00:51
Memphis 3 the state stands behind the [Music] convictions West Memphis 3 West Memphis 3
01:01:26
[Music] West Memphis